Recently, there has been increasing interest in minimally invasive and percutaneous replacement of heart valves in a patient. One type of valve that can be used is referred to as a prosthetic heart valve. Prosthetic heart valves can be constructed from a variety of naturally occurring tissue, such as mammalian tissue, which may include either human tissue including autologous tissue or cadaverous (homologous) tissue, or animal tissue, which would be heterologous tissue.
Autologous, homologous and heterologous tissue can be shaped using molds to more closely resemble a functional natural valve. However, there exists a need in the art for additional shaping and molding techniques. In particular, there is a need for methods of incorporating a shaped prosthetic valve with a stent or other type of frame, since conventional designs and methods often produce a stented valve that has concentrated stresses at the points where the leaflets are attached to the stent frame. In some cases, the stents are rigid as compared to the flexible material from which the leaflets of the tissue valve are made, such that the repetitive flexing motion of the leaflets can create stress concentrations at the points where the tissue valve is attached to the stent. These stress concentrations can eventually lead to tearing of the tissue, valve leakage, and/or failure of the heart valve. Thus, there is a continued need in the art for devices and methods to shape and/or mold heart valves, and for methods to durably attach a tissue valve to a stent and/or to distribute the stresses away from the attachment and seam areas for bioprosthetic heart valves, and methods of using the same.